WOMEN PEACE BUILDERS FROM IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE
MIDDLE EAST JOIN OTHERS AT COLLOQUIUM
TO OFFER ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINING PEACE

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS NOVEMBER 4 - 9, 2002

For centuries women have been bridging religious, ethnic, and cultural divides. Today more than ever, as the situation in Iraq and the continuing war on terrorism dominate world headlines and political agendas, that critical expertise is needed at the policy-making table.

Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace network members from Iraq, Northern Ireland, Sudan, the Middle East, and other regions will assemble on the heels of the second anniversary of the unanimous passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, the first resolution to specifically address women's contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace. They will insist on action on this and similar policy statements issued by the European Union, Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe, and G8 nations' foreign ministers, which call for the full inclusion of women in peace processes at the local, regional, and international levels, but have yet to be adequately implemented.

The Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace Colloquium, an Executive Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is a unique forum where women peace builders meet to discuss innovative strategies for preventing, stopping, and recovering from violent conflict. Not only in positions of formal power, but also working at the grassroots level where peace agreements are implemented and lived out, Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace leaders offer a valuable perspective that is too often excluded from official and unofficial peace processes.

Conference participants will include:

Farida Azizi, an Afghan aid worker who fled to the United States in 2000, now works as Senior Advisor to the Vital Voices Global Partnership Program for Afghan Women. She recently spoke on Capitol Hill, calling on the United States government to ratify the treaty on the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women; other speakers included HM Queen Noor of Jordan; US Senators Joseph Biden, Barbara Boxer, and Paul Wellstone; and US Congresswomen Connie Morella and Juanita Millender McDonald. During Afghanistan's period of oppressive Taliban rule, Ms. Azizi was forced to leave medical school, but received government permission to be a health educator and was able to train women in healthcare work.

Katrin Michael fled the Kurdish area of northern Iraq following Saddam Hussein's devastating chemical and biological attacks on the region. She now works for the Washington Kurdish Institute. A member of the Iraqi opposition in the United States, she has worked to increase women's presence in domestic and international opposition movements. Dr. Michael currently has a book in production; From Violence to Non-Violence tells of the 1988 chemical and biological bombings in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that forced more than one million Iraqi Kurds to repatriate to different countries.

Formerly the Secretary General of the Israeli popular movement Peace Now, Gaby Lasky is an Israeli human rights attorney working as legal advisor to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a non-political organization dedicated to the elimination of torture as a means of interrogation by Israel's security forces. She documents, monitors, and responds to cases of illegal torture, ill treatment, and police brutality within Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

An anthropologist and accomplished scholar, Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf focuses on security, human rights protection, and the cultural strategies adopted by displaced women to cope with violence and dislocation, particularly that resulting from the lengthy civil war in Sudan. She is currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, developing policy recommendations for improving the experience of war-displaced women. She is a visiting assistant professor of Africana and gender studies at Brown University, where she also has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research. Dr. Abusharaf's numerous publications include Wanderings: Sudanese Migrants and Exiles in North America, one of the first books devoted to the experience of Sudanese immigrants and exiles in the United States.

Highlights and events open to the media include:

• Challenges in the Face of Terrorism: Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace, ARCO Forum panel discussion, Thursday, November 7, 7:00 - 8:00 PM, Littauer Building, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
• Policy Day Opening and Closing Plenaries, discussions between US and international policymakers and women peace builders focusing on action steps to ensure women's full participation in the peace process, Friday, November 8, 10:00 - 11:30 AM and 3:00 - 4:30 PM, Littauer Building, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge

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